DICKIE ROBERTS: FORMER CHILD STAR

And what about the hilariously awful-sounding film-within-a-film that Dickie wants to star in, a "high concept" fable in which a man literally discovers heaven in his own backyard? Is all this meant to be ironic – and if so, when do we laugh? 
There are many moments in this witless low comedy where it’s hard to fathom just what the filmmakers were thinking; even the joke announced in the title isn’t developed according to any clear logic. It might have been funny if the adult Dickie clung to the cloying mannerisms that originally got him noticed, or if his showbiz upbringing had turned him into a catchphrase-spouting automaton like Jim Carrey in The Cable Guy. But in the event Dickie simply registers as a whiny stoner who thinks the world owes him a living – much as Spade expects the audience to forgive his laziness as actor and writer. 

Indeed, the film only makes sense as an attempt (however feeble) at self-analysis: the early scenes where Dickie struggles to revive his career surely reflect Spade’s own experiences on the lower rungs of the celebrity ladder, and while we’re eventually meant to believe that Dickie has matured, his creator remains cut off from any emotion that can’t be conveyed with a smirk. The sexual undercurrents of the story are a whole other issue, though they also seem personal, or at least distinctive. Any movie where the hero dresses as a child, falls in love with his "mother", and repeatedly seems sexually disturbed by barely pubescent girls...well, perhaps it’s best not to speculate. If you’re that interested in David Spade, you work it out.